Your Problems Solved, With Holly Harper

05-05-10

Dear Holly,I am a working class NHS employee whose dad was a miner and whose grandmother was once sent to prison for evading poll tax. As a single parent I like to take my son on countryside rallies to campaign against fox hunting and my favourite colour is red. Many of my friends are gay immigrants. The thing is, there’s a man at my work who I find very attractive. The only problem is, he told me he intends to vote Conservative in the up-coming election. Do you think I should attempt pursue any form of relationship with this person? After all he does have a very nice bottom.Tracy,Manchester.

Dear Tracy,Last week, my teacher bought in some eggs and put them in a special box with a lamp called an ‘incubator’. Every day we watched the eggs and they sat there doing nothing. Then one day, during silent reading, Sharon Eccles noticed that one of the eggs was moving. We watched and watched and eventually a little beak appeared. Then a slimy little yellow face started to poke its way out of the shell, until eventually a fluffy baby chick appeared and said ‘cheep’. We were all really excited and we named the chick ‘Mr Chirpy’. Our teacher said that we could all go outside and dig for worms to feed to Mr Chirpy. While we were finding Mr Chirpy’s dinner, Philip Walker decided to see if Mr Chirpy wanted to make friends with our class goldfish. Unfortunately, it turned out that Mr Chirpy wasn’t able to breathe under water and he died before any formal introductions could be made. Our teacher explained that chicks and goldfish simply aren’t meant to be friends, and Philip Walker had to go home early. If I were you, I’d just accept the fact that, in the same way as goldfish and baby chickens, some people are not meant to be friends. The best thing would be to forget all about this man before one of you winds up dead in a waste-paper basket. Hope that helps!Holly